Pretend you have a ballot for the 2022 edition of Sight & Sound's top 10 movies of all time list

Looks like at this early point, 2001 is the most-mentioned, with 5.

no cinephile can meaningfully confine a list to 10 w/out playing "electability"-style Family Feud

(or usually, 'let me vote for what others won't')

If I were to vote strictly on the "electability" index (i.e. movies that were already solidly in the top 50/100 last decade), I guess my ballot would be selections from these:

The Rules of the Game (1939)
The Magnificent Ambersons (1942)
Late Spring (1949)
The Night of the Hunter (1955)
Imitation of Life (1959)
L'eclisse (1962)
La Jetée (1962)
Gertrud (1964)
Au Hasard Balthazar (1966)
Barry Lyndon (1975)
Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975)
Nashville (1975)
Close-Up (1990)
A Brighter Summer Day (1991)
Sátántangó (1994)
Mulholland Dr. (2001)

The trick is to have three classic films to establish that you've seen the basics, three strategic votes for something you want to see move up on the list, and three votes for something no one else will vote for, so that you seem like you have a personality. And a joker.

The Art of the Listmaker

Aren't there 12 picks on each ballot?

Has there ever been a favourite-films ILX poll? Maybe before I got here, but I don't remember one since. You should run one, Eric, in advance of the S&S poll. At least there won't be arguments over what qualifies. Everything does.

I mean... You should definitely run the poll, but there will be arguments when The Return of Twin Peaks wins it...

Let's wait a few years until there's Netflix films that don't appear in the cinema :)

Bird Box doesn't count?

Limited theatrical run in December 2018 (and a festival before that)

Huh. The more you know

For the most part avoiding S&S films (many of course objectively better or more influential):

Woman in the Dunes (Teshigahara, 1964)
Aguirre: The Wrath of God (Herzog, 1972)
Come and See (Klimov, 1985)
Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters (Schrader, 1985)
For All Mankind (Reinert, 1989)
Underground (Kusturica, 1995)
Happiness (Solondz, 1998)
Werckmeister Harmonies (Tarr & Hranitzky, 2000)
Devils on the Doorstep (Jiang, 2000)
Synecdoche, New York (Kauffman, 2008)

I don't mind running an all-time poll as soon as I can come up with something better than Schmight and Schmound.

sought and signed

Devils on the Doorstep is a very good film

The trick is to have three classic films to establish that you've seen the basics, three strategic votes for something you want to see move up on the list, and three votes for something no one else will vote for, so that you seem like you have a personality. And a joker.

― Frederik B, Wednesday, February 26, 2020 11:47 AM (two hours ago)

Actually, I think we cracked the code on the 2012 ballots thread:

for younger crix the alogorithm is usually

1 x silent film that isnt potemkin sunrise or w/e
1 x bresson/dreyer
1 x japanese
1 x godard else maybe eustache or markers or suchlike
2 x ford/hawks/sirk/&c
2 x hitchcock/welles/kubrick
1 x tsai/breillat/&c antiseptic post 95 arthouse
1 x avantgarde

― The term “hipster racism” from Carmen Van Kerckhove at Racialicious (nakhchivan), Wednesday, April 25, 2012 1:59 PM (seven years ago)

1 silent, preferably in which an elephant dies on camera
1 fruity early sound musical
1 first wave a-g
1 newer a-g, preferably a horror movie in disguise
1 golden age of horror
1 French 60s (maybe Bresson)
1 French 70s (maybe Bresson)
1 movie with men kissing, but they're actually killing each other unless one is underage
Satantango
2 girls, 1 cup reax YouTubes

― jungleous butterflies strange birds (Eric H.), Wednesday, April 25, 2012 2:04 PM (seven years ago)

1 silent, preferably in which an elephant dies on camera
1 fruity early sound musical
1 first wave a-g
1 newer a-g, preferably a horror movie in disguise
1 golden age of horror
1 French 60s (maybe Bresson)
1 French 70s (maybe Bresson)
1 movie with men kissing, but they're actually killing each other unless one is underage
Satantango
2 girls, 1 cup reax YouTubes
― jungleous butterflies strange birds (Eric H.), Wednesday, April 25, 2012

add 1 ounce Campari and/or Averna
add 1/8 ounce Noilly Pratt sweet vermouth
stir

for younger crix the alogorithm is usually
1 x silent film that isnt potemkin sunrise or w/e
1 x bresson/dreyer
1 x japanese
1 x godard else maybe eustache or markers or suchlike
2 x ford/hawks/sirk/&c
2 x hitchcock/welles/kubrick
1 x tsai/breillat/&c antiseptic post 95 arthouse
1 x avantgarde

replace "avantgarde" with "Lynch" and this is perfect

Right, at this point one slot on each ballot is reserved for Mulholland Dr. or Inland Empire or Twin Peaks: The Return. No question.

https://media2.giphy.com/media/qPLjY64Y1qeNG/giphy.gif

I don't mind running an all-time poll as soon as I can come up with something better than Schmight and Schmound.

I Have No Sight, and I Must Sound

Milm and Foovies

The sights are alive with the sound of movies

Peace on Earth (Harman 1939)
Night and the City (Dassin 1950)
Playtime (Tati 1967)
Eraserhead (Lynch 1977)
Possession (Żuławski 1981)
Pee-wee's Big Adventure (Burton 1985)
Goodfellas (Scorsese 1990)
Safe (Haynes 1995)
Ghost World (Zwigoff 2001)
The Social Network (Fincher 2010)

All male directors and only two not in English, I know.

sound + vision

Blind, deaf, and mute.

Footlight Parade (Bacon, 1933)
The Music Box (Parrott, 1932)
The Scarlet Empress (von Sternberg, 1934)
UHF (Levey, 1989)
Seven Years Bad Luck (Linder, 1921)
Justin de Marseille (Tourneur, 1935)
Eliso (Shengelaia, 1928)
The Valley of the Bees (Vláčil, 1968)
Was Frauen Träumen (von Bolvary, 1933)
Razzia sur la Chnouf (Decoin, 1955)

Interesting list, I haven't seen any of them!

The Mirror (Tarkovsky, 1975)
Oslo, August 31st (Trier, 2011)
Mulholland Dr (Lynch, 2001)
The Green Ray (Rohmer, 1986)
Etre et avoir (Philibert, 2002)
The Graduate (Nichols, 1967)
2001: A Space Odyssey (Kubrick, 1969)
North by Northwest (Hitchcock, 1959)
Singin' in the Rain (1952)
Billy Liar (Schlesinger, 1963)

Just read the thread and reailse I've shared three with Morbs, what a creep.

I'd always have picked Vertigo until now but the last time I watched it didn't quite churn me up as much as before so I wonder if I've just grown out of it. Or whether I'm just put off by it climbing to #1 in the S&S list. Anyway, North by Northwest is as enjoyable a watch as any film I know.

Seems like progressing from loving North By Northwest to loving Vertigo is what goes with the river of life's current.

I've become less anguished with age.

Talking of which, not Taxi Driver so far.

I don't mind running an all-time poll as soon as I can come up with something better than Schmight and Schmound.

Spite and pwnd

Spite & Stanned

Anyway.

I could just as soon put LE RAYON VERT on mine too, Alba

sorry

Chronologically:

Duck Amuck (Jones 1953)
Yojimbo (Kurosawa 1961)
PlayTime (Tati 1967)
Repo Man (Cox 1984)
Home Alone (Columbus 1990)
Ricky Jay and His 52 Assistants (Mamet 1996)
The Prince of Egypt (Wells/Hickner/Chapman 1998)
The Matrix (Wachowski/Wachowski 1999)
Spirited Away (Miyazaki 2001)
Lady Bird (Gerwig 2017)

Etre et avoir (Philibert, 2002)

The final fillum cut from my own list, but I'd probably wedge it in there somewhere if this wasn't all just for pretend.

Women In Revolt (Morrissey)
Come and See (Klimov)
Safe (Haynes)
Andrei Rublev(Tarkovsky)
Syndromes and A Century (Weerasthakul)
Quiz Show (Redford)
La Jetee (Marker)
Mulholland Dr. (Lynch)
Days of Heaven (Malick)
The Elephant Man (Lynch)
Night of the Hunter (Laughton)
Code Unknown (Haneake)

Quiz Show hell yeah

+ Beau Travail (Denis)

& delete Days of heaven, I suppose.

yeah Silby!

A canonical Jewish movie imo

“I’m acquainted with rugelach.”
“How’d a guy like you get in to Harvard?”

amazing scriptwriting throughout that one.

Etre et avoir--liked it a lot, great ending (a career in teaching punctuated with a sigh), but I thought the teacher was a little too idealized; he was the perfect teacher anyone who's done it rarely is.

- What's the special?

- It's the Reuben.

- The Reuben sandwich is the only entirely invented sandwich. Won the National Sandwich contest two years ago.

-A salient point.

-Who invented it?

-Uh, Reuben kay, at a poker game in Omaha.

- I knew there was a ''k'' in Nebraska.

-Unfortunately they have the sandwich here, but, uh, they don't seem to have any Reubens.

Touche.

I love that you love it, ALS.